


Birthdays

by thefairfleming



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefairfleming/pseuds/thefairfleming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at some of Rose Tyler's most important birthdays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, this got Jossed to hell and back. ;)

*****  
When Rose turned four, her mother made her pink cupcakes. She also got a Barbie, a new jump rope, and a bright purple jumper. Mickey gave her a roll of wrapping paper. Well, actually a cardboard tube that had long been stripped of its colorful paper. Still, he put a nice bow on it, and Rose found the empty tube made an excellent tool for smacking things, namely Mickey's head. In fact, when the cardboard finally bent in half after a particularly strong smack, she wasn't sure who cried more, her or Mickey.  
  
But after two more pink cupcakes, all was forgiven, and the two children ran hand in hand to the playground. Mickey pushed while Rose swung up, up, up into the sky, watching as the first stars of evening appeared. The breeze sang against her face, and Rose wanted to leap out of the swing, arms spread wide, and float forever in that soft sky.  
  
*****  
Rose turned seventeen in the bedsit she shared with Jimmy Stone. Jimmy forgot her birthday, of course, and she spent the evening with a lukewarm mug of tea and gallons of self-pity. Finally, at midnight, she gave in and called Jackie.  
  
She kept her voice light, spoke of the imaginary party Jimmy had thrown for her, and really thought she'd kept her mum fooled.   
  
Then a pause and, "Come home, sweetheart," and she had broken down, cried, and packed her things that night.  
  
*****  
When Rose turned nineteen, she went to the pub with Mickey and Shareen. They had drank too much and laughed too much and Rose was actually feeling a little sick when they brought out the cake, glowing with the light of twenty candles.   
  
"One to grow on," Mickey said as he kissed her cheek.  
  
She had blown them out with a strange tightness in her chest and a hollow feeling in her stomach. Later, when they asked her what she'd wished for, she'd joked, "Jude Law's phone number and calorie free chocolate."   
  
She couldn't even explain the wish her mind had whispered.  
  
Somthing new. Something more.  
  
*****  
Rose did not remember turning twenty. Or twenty-one for that matter. Thanks to a missing twelve months, she never really knew how old she was, not that it mattered. Every day was aboard the TARDIS was a celebration anyway. Cake and candles would not have made it more special. She had asked the Doctor once when his birthday was, and he had given her that look that said he wasn't sure how she managed to walk without falling down more.   
  
"You stop counting once you're in the triple digits," he'd said.  
  
"Well, then, you can have my birthday," she'd replied.  
  
He had perked up some at that and asked her when that was.   
  
When she'd told him, he'd fired up the TARDIS and they'd ended up in London on April 27, 1987.   
  
"So this is it!" the Doctor had enthused as he took her arm, leading her out of the TARDIS. "The day little Rose Tyler came in to the world."  
  
She had glanced up at him. "Um...Doctor, if your idea of a birthday celebration is somehow witnessing my actual birth, I'm seriously going to have to pass."  
  
The look of horror he gave her made her giggle. "I'd never be able to afford the therapy for both of us! No, we are here simply because this is the start of all your birthdays, and I want you to have the best one ever, right at the start. Now, what do you want to do?"  
  
Unbidden, a memory had come of the only time she had ever tried to kiss the Doctor. It had been right after the Dalek. Adam had been tucked away in his room, and she and the Doctor had been alone at the console. She had never seen him look so...sad just wasn't the word. Defeated. Devestated. Alone. She had gone to him with the intention of hugging him, but he had clutched her to him so tight that it had hurt. She hadn't cared. She had held him, her cheek against his jacket, wondering when leather had become her favorite smell. When he had loosened his hold, it had felt like the most natural thing in the world to raise her lips to his. But she hadn't even brushed his mouth when he pulled back and said, "No, Rose."  
  
If he had said it gruffly or abruptly, she would have been okay. But instead he had looked at her so kindly, with such softness in his eyes, and she had felt young and stupid, and very, very human.  
  
They had never talked about it again.  
  
So when he had asked her what she most wanted to do, she didn't tell the truth.   
  
She had smiled with her tongue caught between her teeth and said, "Chips?"  
  
He had rolled his eyes. "Coulda guessed that."  
  
And so, on Rose's first birthday, she had had fish and chips with the Doctor at a small pub down the street from Victoria Station.  
  
Later, when they'd walked back to the TARDIS hand in hand, he had looked disappointed.   
  
"So that's it? Your very first birthday and you wanted to spend it eating in some dodgy old pub with dodgy old me?"  
  
She had jerked his hand and brought him up short. "Hey! This is just part one of the birthday festivities. You forget, we're sharing this day, so you get to pick what we do next. I picked something safe and easy because, knowing you, your choice will be flitting off to some moon that has purple oceans and green skies or something, and getting ourselves into a ridiculous amount of danger." She shrugged. "Just wanted to get some fish and chips in before I'm possibly killed."  
  
His face broke into a wide grin. "Fantastic!"  
  
And in that moment, she thought she probably could have fallen in love with him if she hadn't already done it a long time ago.   
  
The Doctor had run off into the TARDIS ahead of her, then popped his head back out with a quizzical expression. "Purple oceans, did you say?"  
  
At her bemused nod, he had grinned again. "Know just the place!"  
  
Later, after, of course, being nearly eaten by some sort of scary, jello-y alien, she had laid in her bed in the TARDIS, listening to the hum, holding her happiness and her love inside her like a pearl, remembering the night of her fourth birthday and that feeling of wanting to dissapear into the sky, swearing to herself that she would never leave, never, never...  
*****  
Rose barely remembered her twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth birthdays. She knew they happened, had vague memories of over-baked cake,an increasing number of candles, and her baby brother clapping, but she spent them in a haze of grief and loss and paperwork. She liked working at Torchwood. It wasn't like working at the shop, the taste of her own potential always on the tip of her tongue, but it wasn't traveling with the Doctor, either.   
  
The adult side of her knew how foolish she was being, knew that billions of people, including her own mum, had lost those they loved, but the tiny, childish part of her fiercely whispered, "It's different. It's different."  
  
She, after all, had lost him twice; once, to the regeneration that had forever taken away the first him, the one she'd fallen in love with. She'd lost the second him, the one she'd eventually fallen for just as hard, to the other side of time.  
  
She listened for his voice, read news reports about Norway, and at night, she looked up at the sky and imagined him, chasing time and space and his own fate, some new companion at his side. In those moments, that tiny, childish part of her whispered that it would have been easier for her if he'd died. If she hadn't had to know that his life continued while hers stood still.  
  
*****  
On Rose's twenty-fifth birthday, Jackie pulled her aside.  
  
"You have to let 'im go, Rose."  
  
She shook her head. "Can't."  
  
Jackie tilted Rose's chin so that she had to look her in the eyes. "I know it's hard, sweetheart. When I lost your dad-,"  
  
"But you got him back! You get to live your life with him, Mum. Even if the Doctor came back right now, I don't get that. I can never have that. I can never..." Suddenly, all the words she had to say seemed too big and the anger and feeling left her voice. "I can never," she repeated, because that seemed to sum it up.   
  
Jackie sighed as she and Rose leaned against the wall. "So I take it the infatuation went a little deeper, then."

Rose's laugh was bitter. "I love him, Mum."  
  
Jackie reached over and took her daughter's hand. "I know you do," and her voice was soft. "And that's why you've gotta snap out of this. This isn't what he wanted for you, this mopin' about and sobbin' like it's the end of the world. You know I'm right."  
  
Have a fantastic life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life.  
  
And, just like her seventeenth birthday, she broke and sobbed in her mother's arms.   
  
*****  
Rose had a thirtieth birthday most women would have killed for. She spent it in the company of Captain Jack Harkness, ex-Time Agent, Head of Torchwood, and rogue extrordinaire. He took her to one of the nicest restaurants in London where he proceeded to completely scandalize the hoity-toity clientele by flirting outrageously (and loudly)with the waiter, singing "Happy Birthday" to Rose in heavily accented French, and just in general being Jack. Rose lost count of how many times she nearly choked on her champagne with laughter. He paid the band twenty pounds so that they could dance to "Moonlight Serenade", and pretended to ignore her quick, stricken look when they segued into "In the Mood", He just pulled her into an enthusiastic swing routine that was nothing at all like the time she'd danced with the Doctor.  
  
Later, when some of their hilarity had died, they had talked about him, the only Doctor they had both known. Jack had laughed the story of her "first" birthday, and Rose had snickered at Jack's tale of all the times he had tried to catch the Doctor in the shower. And then, as always, their talk turned to Satellite Five, and Rose managed to keep from being a total cliche and sobbing into her red wine, but just barely.   
  
Later, Jack drove her home and walked her to her door. He kissed her on the lips, as they had done a hundred times in the four years since Jack had been at her Torchwood, but this time Rose pressed it. She opened her mouth under his and twined her arms around his neck.   
  
For a moment, he kissed her back and it was like...well, it was like kissing Captain Jack Harkness.   
  
Then he gently pulled away from her and caught her face in his hands. For a long while, he stayed nearly frozen, his lips against her forehead while she listened to him take deep breaths.   
  
He looked down at her finally and the expression on his face made her think of the Doctor and after the Dalek.  
  
"Rose," Jack said softly, so much love in his voice. "You know I adore you, but...let's put it this way. In my show, I'm always the star. I can't be a stand-in."  
  
Chastened, she pulled back. "Got it."  
  
Jack smiled, kissed her cheek, and turned back to his car.  
J  
ust before he climbed in, he turned back and called, "Still, I'm a hell of a kisser, huh? You ever run into him again, you make sure you tell him that."  
  
Rose rolled her eyes, laughed, and felt a weight lift off her chest for the first time in eight years.  
  
*****  
Two days after Rose's thirty-first birthday, her Doctor came back to her. Her first Doctor.  
  
There was a crisis at Torchwood, more Slitheen, this time a cousin of the family they had faced so long ago. Jack had sent an alert to the Doctor, warning Rose that they had no way of knowing which Doctor they were getting, and that the chances were far greater of getting a Doctor they didn't know.  
  
Rose had prepared for that. What she had not prepared for was the familiar, leather jacket clad figure to stride into her office, goofy grin plastered   
on his face, announcing, "Rose Tyler, World Defender! Fantastic!"  
  
She had alternately wanted to kiss him, smack him, tackle him to the ground, and shag him senseless.  
  
Instead, she burst into tears, which had alarmed him and sent Jack scrambling into her office.   
  
It had taken quite an amount of cajoling to get the Doctor out of her office once she had started crying, but Jack somehow managed it.  
  
Once she was calm, she asked, "When?"  
  
Jack sighed."After me, before Satellite Five. I think he's from the time you and I went shopping in Paris in the 50s, right after Raxicoricofallapatorious."  
  
Rose sniffed and glanced at her feet. "I got these shoes on that trip."  
  
Jack sat down in a chair opposite her desk.  
  
"Rose, after he's helped us, we have to wipe his memory. He's agreed to it, so it's a done deal. That means that you can tell him anything you want. Do you get what I'm saying?"  
  
Rose picked up a file folder so that she could at least look occupied.   
  
"Right. So it doesn't matter if I tell him about the whole him dyin' and turnin into somebody else thing. Got it."  
  
Jack was quiet for so long that Rose lowered the folder. "What?"  
  
"Rose," Jack said through clenched teeth. "If you do not tell that man...alien, whatever, that you love him, I will beat you to death with those kicky little Givenchy pumps. Understood?"  
  
Rose blinked. "Right. Love. Brutal death. Cute shoes. Ten-four."  
  
So that night, she took the Doctor back to her flat to go over the Slitheen files with him. While she got them both a cup of tea, he stood in her living room, and when she came in, she saw him looking around the place with a look he usually only reserved for new planets.  
  
"What?" she asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious about her pink couch and the rug she had attempted to hook herself that ended up resembling some sort of Pepto Bismol amoeba.  
  
He looked at her with that smile of pride that made her heart constrict.   
  
"Just...you. Rose Tyler. All grown up. Alien expert, 21st century woman, and this!" He spread his arms wide, taking in her whole flat, maybe her whole life. "This is fantastic!"  
  
He lowered his arms and the smile remained. "I'm so proud of you, Rose."  
  
Suddenly, he was wobbling in front of her and she realized that tears were in her eyes again.  
  
The Doctor crossed the room and took the cups of tea from her, placing them on the coffee table.   
  
"I take it," he said, and she could tell he was purposely keeping his voice light and jovial, "that something really horrible happened to me, else you'd still be travelin'with me and not, you know, breakin' out the waterworks every time you look at me."  
  
She covered her mouth with her hand and nodded, so he guided her to the couch and sat down next to her.   
  
"Apparently, I'm getting the big brain wipe as soon as this is all over, so you might as well spill."  
  
And so she had. She told him all of it, starting with Margaret and the heart of the TARDIS, including Bad Wolf and the Daleks, Reinette and the Cybermen, her restored dad, Mickey and Jake, and finally ending on a beach in Norway.  
  
When she finished, her tears had dried and she leaned, exhausted, against the back of the sofa.   
  
The Doctor hadn't spoken a word as she'd rambled. He'd looked at her, glancing away only when she'd mentioned the Daleks, and after she'd finished, there was a long silence.  
  
Then, "So...you liked new me?'  
  
She laughed without humor. "I loved new you, yeah."  
  
Her voice softened to a whisper and she was suddenly aware of the dim light, the closeness of his body, the familiar, heartbreaking smell of his leather jacket. "I told you that. New you. On the beach, I said I loved you."  
  
Now his eyes were on hers, warmer, darker. "And what did I say to that, Rose Tyler?"  
  
She shook her head. "You didn't get a chance to say anything. The void closed."  
  
She took a deep breath and felt she was leaping into a void all her own. "What would you have said, Doctor? If you'd had time?"  
  
He didn't answer. He didn't have to.  
  
This time, when she slid across the couch and pressed her lips to his, there was no, "No, Rose", no resistance. He pulled her to him until she was straddling his lap. She wasn't sure if his groan was defeat or surrender.   
  
In her bed, he approached her body like he did everything that was new and wonderful to him. His hands memorized her skin. He studied everything that that drew a gasp or a sigh or a moan from her throat. His kissed her like he had all the time in the world.   
  
And she guessed he did.

At the end, long after she'd found her own release, his whispered in her ear, over and over again, "Rose, Rose..." and for the first time since she'd tried to swing into the sky, she had felt that weightless, joyful feeling in the pit of her stomach.  
  
Afterwards, when they had laid side by side, sweaty and breathing hard, he had said in a wondering voice, "I'd forgotten about that."  
  
She had looked at him, one eyebrow raised.   
  
"Forgotten sex?"  
  
He rolled onto one elbow. "Well, not the act as such, but the feelings, yes."  
  
"So you've done this before."  
  
"Yup."  
  
She sat up a little. "With a companion?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"Then why did you turn me down?"  
  
"After the Dalek?" He sighed and flopped against the pillows. "A million reasons. You were too young. We were both confused and hurt. Adam was on board."  
  
"Yeah, like twenty rooms away."  
  
"Well, as loud as you are in bed, I would have had to put him on the other side of the galaxy."  
  
She swatted at his arm.  
  
He laughed and linked his hand with hers.  
  
"So. No regrets?"  
  
She looked at him and said with all her heart, "None now."  
  
He leaned across and kissed her, so softly it made her ache, a then settled back against the pillows.  
  
"You know," he said conversationally, "Be awfully nice to hear you say what you said to new me to this me."  
  
Rose bit her lower lip and pretended to think it over. "Hmmm. Don't know if it's quite the same. I mean, he had _awfully_ good hair."  
  
"So you were in love with good hair?"  
  
"Could be."  
  
"But you never shagged him."  
  
"True. But it was really good hair, so I can't really make an adequate evaluation until I've shagged you as many times as I saw the hair."  
  
He raised his eyebrows. "But you saw him every day! For months!"  
  
She nodded solemnly. "I didn't say it would be easy, but it has to be done. For science."  
  
He grinned. "I do love science."  
  
She shrieked as he rolled her under him and he pulled back, looking at her with mock seriousness. "Now, Rose, science is no laughing matter."  
But within two minutes, neither of them was speaking at all.  
  
  
  
Three days later, he was gone. During those three days, they'd managed to save the world (again), get in a huge screaming match (or five), and finally fulfill a few lingering fantasies (she got him up against the console; he got her back into that Victorian dress).   
  
When he left, she felt sorry for the younger Rose, who was still waiting to lose him, as well as for the present Rose, who had now lost him three times.   
  
But as Jack held her hand and they listened to the TARDIS fade away, there was no crushing sense of loss.   
  
She had swung into the sky, and she had jumped.  
  
*****  
For Rose's thirty-second birthday, they threw her a small party in the office. Jack was inappropriate as usual and her brother had thrown up his huge slice of cake, but it had still been fun. After the party was over, the new guy, Daniel Wells, transferred in from the Cardiff office, had approached her desk and laid down a rather badly wrapped present.   
  
She had opened it to find a pink candle.   
  
"You seem to like pink. Plus it smells good, so that made me think of you. Not that I go around smelling you or anything."  
  
She'd laughed.  
  
Daniel Wells didn't have big ears or wild dark eyes, but she liked his smile. And two weeks later, when he asked her out ot dinner, she said yes.  
  
*****  
When Jacqueline Wells turned seven, her mother made her pink cupcakes. She also got more toys than she could count and, weirdly, a cardboard tube with a bow from her Uncle Mickey. Her mum had laughed when she'd seen it and laughed even harder when Jacqueline had hit Uncle Mickey upside the head with it. Jacqueline loved all her presents, but the weirdest one (well, apart from the cardboard tube)had been a rectangular, blue bank.  
  
When she had held it up questioningly, her mum had smiled and said, "It's a police box, baby. From the 1960s." There had been a far away look on her mother's face, but then Daddy had taken her arm and she had smiled and patted his hand.   
  
"That's a very special present, Jacqueline. It's from a very important friend of Mummy's," her father had said.  
  
Jacqueline didn' really know what that meant, but she liked it and kept it in her lap for the whole party.  
  
At one point, she looked up and saw her mum staring at a strange man with bright red hair, standing across the park and watching them.   
  
Usually, Mum told her to stay away from strange men, but this one, Mum just smiled at. Then, even weirder than the cardboard tube or the bank, her mother had pointed at the man's hair and given a thumbs up.   
  
The man had waved back, winked at Jacqueline, and then disappeared into the trees.  
  
"Was that your very important friend?"  
  
Her mum smiled. "I think so."  
  
Jacqueline didn't question it further. After all, her mother could be pretty weird. Like the time she had been the guest reader in Jacqueline's nursery school class and that fat kid, Mark, had farted. Her mum had spent five minutes poking around his forehead and muttering, "gas exchange" before Miss Florence had asked her to stop.  
  
As the party broke up, Jacqueline and her mother walked down to the swings. Her mum pushed her, higher and higher, before catching her and pulling her against her chest.   
  
Then she whispered,"What did you wish for, my darling?"  
  
"To fly," Jacqueline whispered back, loving the warm, cozy feeling of sharing a secret with her mum.  
  
"Then do it," her mother whispered back and this time, when she pushed Jacqueline so high, Jacqueline spread her arms...  
  
And leapt into the soft sky.


End file.
